Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. II.djvu/23

Rh formerly powerful Pisa, the head of an independent republic of that name. For there was a time—from the 10th to the 14th century—when the State of Pisa was mighty in war and peace, on sea and on land. But contentions with the growing republics of Genoa and Florence crushed its power, and since the year 1406, Pisa, with her territory, has belonged to Tuscany. Art and science have, however, upheld the life of the city until a later period. But the death-blow came in 1848, when, in consequence of the youth of Pisa, and its University also, having taken part in the Italian attempt at liberation, the Tuscan government removed the greater part of the university to Sienna. Since this time, Pisa has been principally supported by foreigners, who come to see its tower, or for the benefit of its air. But there seems to me to be a danger of their being devoured or chased away by its beggars, and that the dismal hunger-tower (the tower of Nyalina,) will, in the end, become a symbolic ghostly image of the whole city.

November 8th.—Pisa possesses, however, four remarkable objects well worthy of a journey thither; the cathedral, the leaning tower, the Baptistry, and the Campo Santo. They have been sufficiently described by learned men and dilettanti, so that I may spare myself and others any trouble of description. I will merely here note down a few of the impressions which I received from these great monuments; and first and foremost, of the cathedral, its glorious